I Am Rosalie Hale: Cursed
by LG1990
Summary: Newborn vampire Rosalie Hale is bitter about the series of events which led to the destruction of her once perfect life. She swears to herself that Royce King and his friends will pay for what they've done to her. Longer summary inside! R


**Cursed**

I pulled the gilded brush through my thick hair as I surveyed myself in the mirror. I tried not to look at my eyes; their crimson iridescence still terrified me, even after the months I'd had to grow accustomed to them. They were the only defect in my otherwise perfect appearance. Before my transformation I had been stunningly beautiful, but that beauty now paled in comparison to my new ethereal countenance. Once my crimson eyes had mellowed, I would look like angels are supposed to look. I would be the embodiment of perfection.

Before the_ incident_, I'd have given anything to be what I now was. I had been vain and frivolous. I had known I was beautiful and I had known that I was the epitome of what every man wanted, but I'd wanted to be the _most_ beautiful, the most enchanting woman that had anyone had ever seen. There was no doubt in my mind that I had achieved my silly dream. If only I'd known then that the price I would pay was higher than I could've ever imagined. This life – no, this _existence - _was a monstrous curse, a thing of nightmares; the thirst, the isolation, the loneliness – they were unbearable. What good was it to be the most beautiful woman in the world when you couldn't ever be loved? How could any man love me with the knowledge of what I was?

I supposed I was bitter. _He_ was entirely to blame for my curse. Royce King had been my prince, and he was to make me Queen. He said loved me, and I loved him. We were young and rich and we were going to have it all; a beautiful home, a beautiful family and a beautiful life. Until he took it all away.

There was a knock at the door. I didn't bother to turn as it opened. "You don't have to do this," my 'brother' Edward, said from the doorway. I looked at him stonily through the mirror. His abilities enabled him to read people's minds, to know what they were thinking. Sometimes that happened after the transformation; certain abilities manifested themselves. Quite frankly, Edward's was a nuisance. For someone else to know every whim and inclination of my conscience was intrusive. He'd had me figured out in the first hour after I woke up. He knew me to the core and yet he himself was a closed book; I knew only what he wanted me to know.

"It's none of your business," I snapped at him, weaving a silver circlet into my golden hair. I smiled indulgently at myself in the mirror, I was radiant.

"Rosalie..."

The way he said my name irritated me more than I could bear. He was so unnecessarily condescending, it was as if he'd lived a thousand years, like he'd seen everything there was to see, and knew everything there was to know. I turned to face him now, smoothing my white dress as I moved. "I need to do this, Edward."

"You've killed four people. You don't have to do this."

"How many countless people have you killed Edward? Yes, I've killed four people. But _five_ people killed me."

"You need to move on. You need to reconcile yourself to this life. Carlisle, Esmé and I have, why can't you?"

"Reconcile myself to the fact that everything I've ever wanted in life is now unachievable? Reconcile myself to the fact that I'll never find someone who can truly love me? That we'll never have the children I've always dreamed of? You're life beforehand mightn't have been perfect, but mine was! I had the world at my feet and there was no reason why I shouldn't live a blessed life. What do I have now? An eternity living with the constant, all-consuming urge to kill every single person I meet and drink their blood?"

"It gets easier; it becomes second nature to resist. It just takes time, Rose. And in time, this crazy notion that you have to kill the people responsible for this will go away too. What he did to you was wrong but you'll get over it."

"No, Edward, it wasn't _wrong_. It was wicked, abominable, reprobate... it was a million times worse than the most _wrong_ thing you or I have ever done. He's the reason I am what I am now. He cursed me with the basest existence possible. His wedding gift to me was an eternity of pain, and thirst and loneliness. Instead of the life I'd always wanted, he gave me a life I wouldn't even bestow upon the most heinous person that ever walked. I won even make _him _suffer it. But I will make him pay for what he's done to me." If I'd still been alive, there would have been tears in my eyes as I stared at the floor. The lump in my throat was such that it almost overcame the everlasting thirst that burned there. Almost.

The door clicked softly shut was Edward left. He knew what I was thinking, and he must know that there was nothing he could do to change my mind.

--

They were all dead. All of my best friends murdered. Not a drop of blood spilled; murdered in the cruellest and most twisted ways imaginable. We had all been there that night. We'd all had too much to drink. I'd been celebrating my engagement to Rosalie Hale. We were half mad with drink when she just happened to walk past. I never meant to...

She was found by a doctor. Carlisle Cullen they call him. They say he's the most innovative and brilliant doctor for decades, yet still he couldn't save her. Spine snapped, blood everywhere, bones broken. She was irreparable, barely even alive when he found her. My father had paid off the police; they put out the story that she had been beaten by a gang of thugs. That was three months ago. I'd gotten away with it, I thought we all had. It was over, and I could move on. I could always find another brainless and beautiful bride.

Rosalie Hale had been a bad mistake; she'd been too beautiful for her own good, too tempting. Her parents had paraded her in front of me, their lovely daughter; the prettiest girl that ever lived in Rochester. We courted for two months, and she wouldn't do more than kiss me. Her parents had been in her ear since the moment I set eyes on her. They made sure she played the part of the chaste and sweet virgin perfectly. I was to get nothing from her without a ring. They got what they wanted. And that awful night, so did I.

Things got out of hand. I didn't know my own strength. She said I was hurting her, but we just laughed. She was screaming and punching and biting me. I couldn't understand why. I didn't realise I'd hit her back, I couldn't stop myself.

And now they were all dead, everyone who'd been there that night; three months ago tonight. The murders started five days ago. Now they were dead, all four of them. I knew I was next. I couldn't help but wonder who was coming for me, and how they knew. Had some policeman let it slip that the King's had paid for his silence? Had someone seen? Or had she still been alive enough when the doctor found her to tell him what had happened? Either way, someone knew. And that someone was coming for me tonight.

There was a noise outside my door. I fumbled in my bedside locker for the revolver I'd been keeping there. Clutching it with trembling hands I scrambled across my bed, putting as much distance as I could between myself and the locked doors. Was that the sound of a neck breaking? Two necks? No, the guards outside my door were trained professionals. My father had paid a hefty sum for them. Surely they'd put up one hell of a fight, even if whoever it was that was coming for me had somehow gotten past the heavy security which had been fortified tenfold in the past few days. There was the metallic sound of a key turning in the lock. One of my family's staff come to bring me supper? Silence. The cold revolver seemed heavier in my quivering hands. I held it in a vice-like grip with white-knuckled fingers. Nothing happened for an eternity. Had I imagined it? Had the sheer terror of the past week driven me crazy?

My eyes were glued to the brass handles on the doors. Were they moving? No...

... Yes, by infinitesimal increments they began to turn. Slowly. Torturously. A petrified sob tore from my trembling lips. I was frozen in place as one of the doors began to open. I was going to die. Pure terror engulfed me. My heart was beating so fast I felt it must explode. The door opened. And there she was.

My Rosalie. My fiancée. She stood in the doorway, her expression blank and her eyes closed. Looking as she would have looked on our wedding day; in a dress so white it bleached even her skin. Her hair, luminously golden by comparison, was woven around a glittering diamond tiara. So beautiful. Somehow, impossibly more beautiful than I remembered.

Was I already dead? Had it happened? Was I in heaven? For surely such an angel could never exist in hell. Had I been forgiven for my sin, and blessed so that I could be reunited with my Rosalie, my beautiful perfect Rosalie?

All terror vanished, and I opened my mouth to speak. But she opened her eyes, and they were red. Red like the blood we'd split that terrible night. I gasped in horror.

She moved towards me with impossible grace, smiling, and her eyes - those awful scarlet aberrations – smiled too. "Royce," was all she said. Her voice, so angelically musical, struck fear into my soul.

"You're – you're dead!" I screamed, my voice breaking from the terror that filled my gut. She laughed.

"No, I'm not dead," she said, her voice as cold as the cruellest winter. "But I'm not alive Royce. You and your friends made sure of that."

"I'm so sorry!" I sobbed, tears welling up in my eyes. I truly was, every ounce of me was so full of remorse that I quivered with it. "Please..."

"Please," she laughed. She used to love it when I made her laugh, and I used to love hearing it. But now the sound filled me with dread. "I said that to you once upon a time, do you remember? You never listened, Royce. Why should I listen now?"

"I'll – I'll shoot you. I don't have to, if you just leave," I said, furiously blinking back the tears in my eyes, and trying to keep the terror out of my voice.

"You can shoot me if you want Royce, it won't save you," she said coolly. I brought the revolver up in my hands, still trembling with fear. She looked at me like I imagined a lioness would look at a kitten. I pulled the trigger. The resulting bang was deafening, like I'd shot a marble pillar. Rosalie only grimaced at the hole left in the stomach of her white dress, before turning her gaze on me once more. S he moved closer now, with the slinking grace of a deadly predator. Reaching out with her pale hands she took the revolver from me effortlessly. I recoiled at the iciness of her skin, cold as death.

"What do you want from me? I'll give you money... as much as you want!" I pleaded, wiping the tears from my face with the back of my hand.

"I have forever to make money," she told me bitterly, casting the revolver aside. It skittered across the dark wooden floor and came to rest against the far wall, useless.

"Then what is it that you want from me?" I pleaded, beginning to cry again. I sank to my knees in front of her, sobbing.

"Retribution," her voice cracked like a whip in the silence of the room.

"Are you going to kill me?" I asked, looking up at her through my tears. She towered above me, only inches away, gazing down at me with vengeful eyes. Even now, moments from a death I knew in my heart that I surely deserved, I could think only of how breathtakingly beautiful she was.

"Yes Royce, I'm going to kill you. The same as I killed your friends, and those guards outside the door. I'm going to make you pay for what you've done to me. And you should consider it merciful, because I'd die a thousand deaths in exchange for the cursed existence you've bound me to."

Her cold hands came to rest on either side of my head. I shivered. Those icy hands were squeezing my head with impossible strength, the pressure was unbearable.

"My prince. My Royce..." that angelic voice whispered.

I screamed as I felt my skull shatter under those icy fingers. The pain was unimaginable, but she wasn't finished yet.

--

I smiled as I watched the stolen wedding dress burn. They would find him in the morning, along with those two guards. I regretted having to kill them, but they never seen me coming, I had killed them so fast they never felt a thing. I truly did regret their deaths. But the thing I would never regret was Royce's death, or those of his friends. I had made them scream the same way I screamed that cold night, three months ago tonight.


End file.
